Here we go again...

This time last year, I was getting all giddy and excited for a trip with my family to the US, and a massive trip it was, driving all the way across the country in what would (unfortunately) probably be my last holiday with my parents, because this time around, i'm stuck with my fellow students and "friends", yay. Now, sarcasm aside, I am incredibly excited, as are many of my friends going with me to Europe this year as part of the Ancient History trip to Turkey, Greece and Italy (Three new countries for me!). Just tonight, we went to the last meeting and got our tickets, it's almost painful to think that there's still 22 days left, it feels so close, AND so far.

Of course, my parents won't be far away from me on this trip, they always find some way to subtly stalk me. They're going to Italy at the same time, and in fact, will be on the same flight as us from Sydney to Dubai! So of course, there won't be much change from the routine, getting a lift from Simon to the airport with mum and dad three hours before the flight, except i'll be saying my goodbyes right away and going to meet up with Erin, Dan, Kaylee, Jake, Lia, Tram Huong, and everyone else who's just as great!

I could probably go on for hours about everything that I want to see and do while i'm overseas with everyone, but I don't want to bore the hell out of my readers, considering I want you all to come back and stick to reading this blog. So for now, i'll just say that I am incredibly excited, I can't wait to see new places, I can't wait to try new things, and most of all I can't wait to spend every single day of this trip with some of the most fantastic, wonderful people I know and may ever know!

All good things must come to an end

Vegas really has everything, whether it's Jack Sparrow casually checking his phone, or two playboy bunnies taking money for photos, you can see it at Vegas. But both are far from the best thing you could see if you came to town, the best thing you could see is Cirque Du Soleil's "Love". The show is done to the music of The Beatles, and if that didn't convince you, I can easily say that it is the best thing i've seen in the whole holiday, and i've seen a lot in this trip.

We're staying in the venetian hotel, and we're definitely in the nicest room we've had for the whole holiday, it's large and comfortable, and doesn't smell like smoke like all the other parts of the hotel. The most interesting part of the venetian is the shopping area, where there is an actual canal in the middle, where you can go on gondola rides, and the roof is made to look like the sky, as if you were actually walking through venice. It looks great as you walk along the canal, looking at the shops, and it's a sudden change as you go into any restaurants or clubs, they are all dark with lit up walls and music, much different to the atmosphere outside.

It occurs to me that this is likely the last post that i'll be able to make, seeing this is the last place we are staying, and the last place where I know I will have access to the internet. Although I am quite sad to see such an excellent trip come to an end, I am also glad to be finally coming home, I have been missing my friends, and my family and would love to see them again. This is probably also the last holiday I will go on with my parents, seeing I will be going to Europe with school next year, and then schoolies after that, and once I leave school I won't be going on holidays with them any more, and it really was an enjoyable final trip to go on with them.

Not many people can say they have done what we have this trip, when we reach Los Angeles, we'll have driven over 5000 miles from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. We've gone from the tropics of the Florida keys, to the swamps of the everglades, to the deserts of Texas and the high mountain forests of Arizona, the scenery and the kinds of people we see have changed again and again as we've gone along, and it really has been a spectacular trip which I will remember for many, many years.

We've still got more to see though, tomorrow we'll be going to the Pawn Shop seen in the TV Show "Pawn Stars" (which if you have not seen it, you should have), and Santa Monica in Los Angeles before we get to the Airport for our flight home, I can't wait to see everyone again and tell them all about this long, fantastic holiday.

Flagstaff Arizona

Today we left Tuscon and began our drive to Flagstaff, a city quite high in the mountains of Arizona, just outside the University of Northern Arizona. Our first stop on the way there was Montezuma Castle, a "town" built in the side of a cliffside by Native Americans back in the Medieval ages, and where the Native Americans lived for a very long time. It was an interesting site, as the buildings were basically modern apartments, but built so long ago and into a cliff.

We also saw the Red Rocks of Arizona as we went toward Flagstaff, the area where these are common has an odd history, again and again it has gone from an area of desert to sea, and then back again, the huge mountains are red sandstone at the base and as they go toward the tip they become limestone, and then even basalt. The site is spectacular and some of the mountains really are beautiful. 

It's a rather large change in Flagstaff, we've gone again from massive deserts to tall forests, and the temperature has been quite low here, which is the exact opposite to the thousand degree heat which we've been getting often on this holiday. Tomorrow we'll be going to Las Vegas, where we'll have the last night of the holiday, drat.

Tuscon

This morning I got to sleep in again, something which I am very happy about on this holiday, considering it has been so rare. I was able to get a good sleep without any distractions in the morning because I am in a separate room to mum and dad, so when they go down to breakfast in the morning, I can remain asleep without being disturbed.

After I eventually did get up and had the breakfast mum and dad brought up to the room for me, we left the hotel and went to the Pima air and space museum nearby, where they have the SR-71 stealth plane, which was used first during the cold war, and went to altitudes so high, that the pilots actually had to wear a space suit.

We looked around the museum at many of the planes they had there, such as the C-130 Hercules and the Air Force One jet used by Kennedy and Johnson. But there weren't just planes, but also helicopters such as the Huey and the UH-60 Black hawk. They had an indoor area known as the "Space gallery" with a few simulators to try and displays.

The highlight of the museum though was the boneyard tour, we got on a bu and were taken to the nearby Air Force base, and then began to drive through the massive storage area for all kinds of planes used by the U.S Air Force, we were told that the boneyard had 4000 planes, and seeing the size of it, that wasn't hard to believe.

After we left the museum we went to the nearby Titan 2 Missile Silo. The Titan 2 is a nuclear missile, and the most powerful one ever deployed by the United States, it could wipe out an entire city. We looked around the facility on a tour, and even got to simulate a launch, I was made the commander and had to launch the missile, though I didn't actually launch one (Next time).

We then went to the Saguaro National Park, which is filled with Saguaro Cacti, these are the cacti which are shaped in the cliche positions, going straight up with slightly curved branches. They have a very long life-span and can grow to up to 50 feet tall, as well as living for over 100 years. We drove around their 5 mile scenic route and took a few photos before heading back to the hotel. It was a long day, but a very enjoyable one.

Into Arizona

So we left Alamogordo this morning and first drove to the nearby White Sands national monument, and missile range. White Sands is a large area of sand dunes which aren't really Sand, but something called Gypsum, which crumbles to make what is basically white sand. We looked around the monument and were surprised to find three large hot air balloons, we waited for a while but unfortunately they didn't take off, and we left the park after exploring for a little bit.

We then started to drive toward the town of Tombstone, of course getting stopped twice by Border Patrol, and even once by a police officer, because dad had been speeding a bit, not deliberately i'm sure (I hope). But everything was fine and all the people who stopped us were very friendly, and quite interested to meet people from Australia!

When we arrived in Tombstone, we looked around the town a little bit, at the old Western buildings and stores before we went to see the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral", a recreation of a very famous gunfight that happened in the town of Tombstone between three lawmen and Doc Holiday, and a group of four cowboys, it was very loud, but also very entertaining. And after seeing that we went onto Tuscon, we have two nights here and we'll be looking around tomorrow, it should be fun!

More of New Mexico

We started this morning after leaving the hotel by going to Carlsbad Caverns, a massive cavern system of limestone which has been preserved as a national park. The caverns are absolutely massive with huge formations of limestone, some looking very interesting. The main part of the park where you walk around inside the caves is about six-hundred and fifty feet under ground, and you can enter it by an elevator or by hiking down the natural cave entrance, we took the elevator like all good lazy people.

After we left Carlsbad, we started to drive to Alamogordo - where we are staying tonight - and we stopped on the way at Roswell, a town famous for a UFO crash which happened there. Everything in Roswell is alien or UFO themed, and even the street lights are decorated to look like the heads of Aliens. While we were there we went to the "International UFO museum" (Yes, it exists) and began looking around there.

After leaving Roswell and going back on the road to Alamogordo, we went through the Lincoln National Forest, and stopped to hike around for a bit, the scenery was quite an interesting change, to have gone from fast deserts to huge forests, high in the mountains was an interesting change. It was a bit cool, unlike down in the city where it was fairly warm, and it was good to actually see some fall foliage. We're going into Arizona tomorrow, and we'll be staying in Tuscon for two nights, it's hard to believe we only have 4 nights left after this one (and fairly uspetting).

Suddenly New Mexico

And suddenly we're in a new state! I missed out on making a post yesterday, we didn't have internet access where we were staying, well, we did, I just didn't really want to walk up to the restaurant with my laptop at night to sit and make a post, then walk back to our room. Nothing much happened yesterday anyway, what we had planned to see in Big Bend was blocked off due to the heavy rain which we had the night before.

Today we had a look around Big Bend at the things we could, and even saw over the border into Mexico at a few places, hard to believe that America and Mexico are separated by just a small river. After we left Big Bend we didn't really stop as we drove to Carlsbad, we had planned to go to Fort Davis, but that was also closed, we've had great luck for the past 2 days, as you can tell.

Tomorrow we'll be going into the caverns here at Carlsbad and going further into New Mexico, we won't be going to Albuquerque unfortunately, at least not unless we make a wrong turn somewhere.